The Hastings Center Report

Peer-reviewed publications on Questia are publications containing articles which were subject to evaluation for accuracy and substance by professional peers of the article's author(s).

The Hastings Center Report is a bimonthly magazine addressing ethical issues in medicine and the life sciences for an audience of physicians and other health care practitioners, attorneys and professionals in business and academia. Founded in Feb. of 1971, The Hastings Center publishes this magazine. Subjects for the Hastings Center Report are medicine and surgery. The Managing Editor is Joyce Griffin. Gregory E. Kaebnick is the Editor.

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Articles from Vol. 32, No. 1, January-February

At birth, Grace Johnson had a lower than normal heart rate, was making no effort to breathe, and exhibited no movement of her extremities. She was quickly intubated and supported by a mechanical ventilator. Diagnostic testing revealed that she had...

To the Editor: Albert R. Jonsen has substantially mischaracterized certain aspects of my work ("Beating Up Bioethics," HCR September-October 2001). Jonsen leaves the impression that I smear bioethics by making the unsophisticated reader believe Peter...

Two contributions to this issue belong in a journal of bioethics only if one takes a broad view of what "bioethics" refers to. Usually, "bioethics" is treated as synonymous with "medical ethics." Most bioethics centers are in medical schools and take...

Popular media may make short shrift of complex ideas and moral deliberations, but it can also serve bioethics well. Bioethics should embrace the ritual function of the media in bringing issues to public attention and in reinforcing bioethics as a field....

Suppose "chicken" eggs could be produced by quasi-chickens--genetically engineered humps of living chicken-flesh that do nothing but lay eggs. Would there be anything amiss with that? Animal ethicists invoke the notion of animal integrity in order...

April 8 The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law, and the Consortium Ethics Program will sponsor the 11th Annual Current Controversies in Medical Ethics Conference in Pittsburgh,...

To the Editor: Cynthia B. Cohen, in "Cloning Hearing Moves Congress toward a Ban," (HCR, May-June 2001) states that "the Supreme Court has never recognized an affirmative right to reproduce by anyone by any means ..." This is not correct. In Skinner...

Two years ago I wrote in this column: "Europe has no common voice on voluntary euthanasia." That remains true, but that European countries can work together is shown by the fact that twelve of them have introduced a common currency. A common position...

Changes in staff can be difficult, particularly for a small organization such as ours, but change brings with it the opportunity for a new perspective. I bring a new perspective focused on fundraising for the Center. Since starting here as director...

Following is the comprehensive index for Volume 31 of the Hastings Center Report. Letters and In Brief items of less than 400 words have not been included. &amp; In most cases, complete issues are available for Volume 31 (2001) and may be purchased...

The British have taken a comprehensive approach to regulating reproductive medicine. A loophole in the current law leaves some cases of sex selection uncovered; if that loophole were closed, however, the law is robust enough to address the concerns...

Although sex selection calls for careful thought, it seems in many cases to be neither intrinsically objectionable nor likely to have bad consequences. Let me start with the obvious. Sexism and sexual discrimination are bad things. Both sexes have...

On 28 November 2001, a little more than three months after naming Leon Kass as chair of the President's Council on Bioethics (PCB), President Bush signed the executive order formally establishing the sixth national bioethics commission created in the...

Where today is legislative ingenuity lavished more bountifully than on the titles of statutes? And where has that ingenuity been better exercised than in the name "patients' bill of rights"? Do not our dearest liberties flow from the Bill of Rights?...

To the Editor: As a person of faith, I appreciate the idea of being able to introduce my deepest concerns in the medical setting. Cynthia Cohen's article, "Walking a Fine Line" (HCR September-October 2001), however, is rather "thin." There is no actual...

Finally, euthanasia is legal in The Netherlands. The bill that was passed by the Lower House of Parliament on 28 November 2000, and confirmed by the Upper House on 10 April 2001, becomes a matter of law in February 2002. (1) Advocates and opponents...